TRAPPED MODEL

Hello again pals! It is time for another cautionary tale about bad men, and worthless cops, and how you can’t trust anyone you meet on the internet. It’s called TRAPPED MODEL and it’ll be fun! You’ll like it.

We open with an aerial shot of a beautiful river in a beautiful forest, and a beautiful redheaded woman in a striped jumpsuit being chased through said forest by a man in oxfords. The oxfords are nice, the jumpsuit is not to my taste. The man, who has a camera hanging from his neck, eventually catches up to the redhead and injects something into her neck. Smash cut to title screen, it’s TRAPPED MODEL, babyyyyyy! (Or, it isn’t: on IMDb, it’s listed as A MODEL KIDNAPPING, which is not as good.)

I accidentally took this in Night Mode so you can really see me and my living room in the reflection

Now we are watching a different man photograph a brunette white model on a blank white set. This is Grace, our main character. The photographer tells Grace that she is boring, and that the reason she doesn't get calls from agencies is that she doesn't take risks, like: perhaps she should take off her top. Grace is wearing a romper. She is wearing a romper. The photographer tells her that he knows people who will pay for nude photos. This sicko is in the pocket of Big Porno! Grace tells him to fuck off and leaves.

Grace joins her doofy-looking boyfriend Matt for milkshakes at a diner for some exposition. Matt tells the audience that Grace is an amazing artist and that she should come to school with him in Miami. Grace gives some background information about herself that boils down to “I like modeling.” Matt tells Grace he loves her, and Grace replies, “....” because you can’t tie this girl down. Grace’s mom Megan happens to work at this diner, so that they didn’t have to have two separate expository scenes. Megan also tells Grace she should go to college. Grace is hearing a lot of opinions and not getting a lot of support right now, okay!!!

Back at home, Grace gets some sad rejection emails. But also! She sees a very alluring ad promising a great opportunity for the right model: no experience necessary, they’ll put you up in an apartment, pay your travel costs, and give you your very own manticore to play with. “It’s too good to be true,” says Grace aloud, but sends her portfolio anyway. The very next morning, the photographer, Hunter, calls her and tells her he’d love to work with her, come to Miami. There is only one city in this movie, and it is Miami. Grace packs her bag and leaves immediately, leaving a note for her sleeping mom and texting Matt from the train.

Upon arriving in Miami, the only city, Grace is greeted by a woman named Nicole. Nicole tells Grace they’ll be going to “the studio” now, which is “about an hour from here.” A good thing to happen in your life is to be driven somewhere vague and unknown by a stranger. They arrive at a big house, it’s got columns and shit, so you know it’s fancy. Nicole introduces Grace to Hunter, who wants to shoot Grace immediately, while she’s still naive. This is also a good thing to happen in your life. Hunter spots a peanut butter protein bar in Nicole’s pocket and snaps at her, because he has a severe nut allergy. I wonder if this will be relevant later!

While Hunter makes dinner and says creep shit like “there’s power in the photos I take,” and “you’re a small town girl who became a superstar” (Grace is from Pensacola), Nicole goes to get more wine, leaving Hunter and Grace alone. And then she never comes back, so Hunter shows Grace to the guest house out back. There are multiple empty birdcages in the bedroom, and also a bookcase with an incredible selection of books (see below). After Hunter leaves, Grace realizes she forgot her bag, and then realizes that she is trapped in the room. She uses the landline to call 911, because Grace likes to escalate a situation, but it directs to Hunter (sure), who is watching her on a giant screen from a home theater. Hunter tells her to get comfortable, she’s a TRAPPED MODEL now.

I annotated this for you so that you didn’t have to squint as much, you’re welcome

There’s a scene where Matt and Megan discuss her departure. It is too long, considering that it’s just them saying, “weird, right? Weird??? Right?????” over and over.

In the morning, Hunter brings Grace breakfast in bed and explains the situation: this is some kind of internet thing where people will watch her. I am unclear on the revenue stream, but this is a man with a guest house so I guess he probably has like a Patreon? He demands her phone and all her social media passwords, tells her they “go live in fifteen” and then as he’s leaving her bedroom, says “memento mori! We’re dying every minute!” which frankly is a thing people should say to each other more. He retreats to his cool guy home theater to watch Grace get ready and harangues her to put on “the cheerleader outfit”, which turns out to be a shirt with a number on it and a short ruffled skirt. Straight men do not know shit about clothes. Hunter uses Grace’s phone and logins to post on Instagram and text both Megan and Matt, concluding the text to Matt with “I love you.” “Oh, sure, now you say it,” says Matt, in his apartment by himself.

Anyway, Grace has her first show, on the ill-defined livestream (??) that I guess people pay money for (???). She looks sad and limply shakes some pompoms while Hunter yells at her to take her top off. It’s very unpleasant. The unpleasantness is broken up by Grace rushing the camera and screaming, “help, I’ve been kidnapped,” but that just gets her show turned off. Trying to throw a lamp through the window doesn’t help either. A trapped model just cannot catch a break. Hunter brings her some bourbon, which he assures her is very expensive, and tells Grace her debut was a hit! The scared college girl thing worked! Megan will be thrilled to hear her daughter described as a “college girl”, I am sure. Grace hucks her glass of bourbon at Hunter’s head while he tries to tell her about Anna Karenina, which is a totally reasonable reaction to a man telling you about Russian literature, but he disagrees and pulls up a picture of the redhead from the first scene, after he injected her with something and presumably killed her. It’s a well-composed shot, I’ll give him that.

Having sufficiently terrified Grace, Hunter goes back to the main house, where Nicole whines at him that he doesn’t pay enough attention to her. The new girl wasn’t supposed to take up as much time! Why can’t they just run away to Mexico! Because Mexico isn’t in Miami, and Miami is the only place, and also because Hunter rescued you, Nicole, you should be grateful. They make out in a bathroom until Hunter calls Nicole “Grace” and she pushes him away.

There’s a montage of Grace’s live shows, which are literally just her dancing around the room, intercut with Matt and Megan worrying about her. Hunter has a chat with Grace about her like, story arc, and uses the phrase “from timid to temptress” simply, too many times. The montage concludes with Grace’s mom declaring that she is coming to Miami.

The cool guy home theater has pretty good bisexual lighting, at least

Nicole has taken a good look at her life and decided that the problem in it is that Grace is leading Hunter on. She pounces on Grace in her bedroom and yells at her that Hunter is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. Grace tells her she's crazy and that Hunter is a killer. They can both be right! They scuffle until Hunter comes in and scolds Nicole, informing her that comparison is the thief of joy. Hunter sure says some things! After Nicole leaves, Grace very weirdly kisses Hunter at the base of his neck, and he woodenly says, “That was nice.” These two are really bonding.

Megan and Matt go to the police to report Grace missing or endangered or something, and the police just silently shrug at them for about five minutes of screen time.

Hunter brings Grace a birthday gift of a silk nightie while Nicole watches from the cool guy home theater. Grace suggests a new act, like a sexy art student thing, because she does art, remember? Matt remembers. She asks if she could go to an art supply store to pick out the paints and brushes she will use to paint her body, but Hunter doesn’t buy that and tells Nicole to get the supplies. Two seconds later, Hunter decides actually, it would be nice to go out with Grace, they’ll go clothes shopping. That is not what she asked for, but Hunter is perhaps not the best listener. Listening is the thief of joy.

At a cute boutique, Hunter picks out some things for Grace to try on, and while she’s in the fitting room, Grace pricks her finger and starts to write “HELP” on the mirror in blood. This is clever but time-consuming, and when Hunter pokes his head in to see what the holdup is, he pulls a gun on her and wipes the blood off the mirror with his sleeve. Grace makes a last-ditch effort at getting the shopgirl’s attention by swiping something off a table, but this is a place where shoplifters are not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, they’re just yelled at until they’re packed into a car and driven away.

Back at home, Hunter screams at Grace for lying to him, even though she never said she wouldn’t use her own blood to scrawl a plea for help on a dressing room mirror. He brings in a dominatrixy Nicole to punish her on the livestream. Which, it turns out, Matt’s roommate is watching, for some reason, and he alerts Matt to the fact that his missing girlfriend is getting whipped on camera and not looking happy about it. “Don’t look!” snaps Matt, and then asks Roommate, who I do not think got a name, “how much do you know about computers??” You're in luck, Matt, that's your roommate's major! This seems like a thing you should know about your roommate, that he majors in Computers, but you know now, that's what's important. Matt asks his roommate to track the IP address of the website, and then texts Grace that he saw her show and he's coming to find her. Hunter demands that Grace call Matt and tell him it's over. She obeys and tells him the videos are tastefully done, and this will spark her modeling career, and she loves him. "I love you" is Grace's secret code for "something is very wrong here," and that won't cause her psyche lasting damage at all, probably.

Matt was cast for the sheer furrowdness of his brow, please admire it

Matt tells Megan that Grace is on "a pornography website" in the same tone that Marge Simpson yells, "Bart's quit his tutoring job and joined a violence gang!" Since he and his roommate can't track down the owner of the website (which, again, the roommate was just watching, for fun), they decide to look for an ad like the one Grace answered. They also go meet with the detective again, who is useless again, and who says "I wish there was something I could..." and then just trails off as Megan storms out. This isn't even the most useless cop in the story, hang on.

Nicole looks through the photos on Hunter's computer and sees the one of the dead jumpsuit girl. When she confronts him about it and tells him she thought he was sending the other girls home, he asks her "what was I supposed to do?????" and reminds her that she's in this with him, so she's a killer too. He might not be wrong about that, felony murder is a fuck (please google "felony murder").

It's time for Grace's "art" stream, which passes pretty uneventfully. She paints herself red and cries and I guess people get off on it, because this is an awful sick world. The world of this movie one thousand percent has Jeffrey Epstein in it. They are in Miami! After her show, she puts a bunch of stuff she's apparently been squirreling away into a coffee can, mutters something about high school chemistry, and waits for it to start smoking so she can hold it under her smoke alarm and set it off. When Hunter comes to investigate the alarm, Grace is WAITING for him with a STILETTO HEEL to CRAM IN HIS EYE. While Hunter screams, Grace pushes past him and runs into the main house to call 911 and scream for help. A copiously bleeding Hunter rushes in and hangs up the phone, and then forces Grace back into the guest house. But a cop comes to investigate the screaming woman on the 911 call! If only this were a movie or indeed a universe where cops were ever, ever helpful! Grace bangs on the front window of the guest house, fully visible to all who can see, but the cop does not see her. Then he gets a call on his radio and leaves. To recap this paragraph: a woman calls 911 screaming, a man is visibly wounded, a guest house is filled with smoke, this seems fine, see ya, ACAB.

Grace's attempts to save herself have all bloodily failed, so Matt will save her. He sees an ad just like the one Grace answered and sends it a fake portfolio, which is gratefully accepted by Hunter. Since he won't need Grace anymore, Hunter immediately goes in the woods somewhere and digs a grave for her. Hunter is an eyepatched man of action. He sends Nicole to pick up the "new girl" from "Jacksonville," but there is just Matt, waiting to follow Nicole back to the studio. Nicole calls Hunter to tell him there's no girl, and Hunter decides that well, he's not going to let that grave he dug go to waste. This is Grace's hole! It was made for her! He will murder her on the stream with literally thousands of witnesses, this is a really good idea, he's really happy with it, thank you for your support!

Hunter tells Nicole about his very good and innovative plan, and she informs him that he is crazy. He leaves Nicole to her own devices and spots Matt skulking around the Trapped Model Compound. Ope, he knocks Matt out and ties him up in the living room of the guest house. Hunter tells Grace to go put on something nice for Matt. We have a series of flashbacks to the one mention of Hunter's deadly nut allergy, and Grace pulls out a peanut protein bar she's been keeping in her closet. How long has she had that? I don't know. But she eats it now, and then just kisses the shit out of Hunter. He gasps and gags, giving Grace a chance to untie a baffled and woozy Matt. Hunter pulls it together enough to stagger into the house asking for his EpiPen, but Nicole tosses it into the garbage disposal because tonight! is a night for standing up for yourself! It's a good act to go out on, because then they fight over a knife and Nicole gets stabbed in the gut. Hunter crawls out the front door after Matt and Grace, and Grace says, "That's a wrap," before she walks away. With a dry cool wit like that, she could be an action star.

ONE YEAR LATER, Megan and Grace are on a beach somewhere, admiring a magazine that Grace is on the cover of. Megan is so proud of her! And Grace is so proud of Megan, finally following her dreams of becoming a lawyer (???)! Also Matt is here, and we get a look at that magazine.

Now I don’t know a lot about publishing, but $500 for a subscription seems like a lot to me, Karen

I love you Matt! I love you Grace! I love that this movie is over and things aren't happening anymore and that I can stop writing! Thank you, I'm sorry! Please subscribe and tell your friends, but also I am sorry!